Atari 600XL Mem Upgrade

+Guitarman · July 19, 2005

Here is a new one. I have a 600XL that I was preparing to sell. I set it up to text it and by chance decided to do the BASIC memory call (print fre(0)) to see how much memory was in it. To my suprise, there is 64K of memory in this 600XL. I then took it apart to see if it was the easy 2 chip upgrade that I did to my other 600XL I am keeping.

What I found was a daughterboard upgrade from a company called BOT Engineering. It has 8 4164 dram chips for the upgrade and plugs into 6 of the sockets on the main 600XL board. The locations it plugs into are:

U11, U12 - original dram locations

U5, U6 - both 74LS158N

U2 - Atari #61618 MMU

U18 - 74S32N

The date on the board is 1983.

Has anyone heard of this upgrade?? I have done a search on the I-Net but haven't found anything yet.

+Guitarman · July 22, 2005

Here are a couple of shots of the upgrade

Edited July 22, 2005 by Guitarman

Xebec's Demise · August 1, 2005

I found all kinds of info on upgrades, but not that one. It is pretty interesting; looks like a professional commercial upgrade.

I just bought a 600XL too. I really like the compactness of the 600XL.

Is it possible to upgrade a 600XL to XE/128k+ compatible? That would make a nice little machine.

I searched the forum and internet already and only found the 64k upgrades for the 600xl. Would the 256k 800XL upgrades work for the 600XL without modification and would they be compatible with a 130XE?

In other words, could I use 128k for Alternate Reality? - You did not think I was going to post and not mention AR, now did you?

Edited August 1, 2005 by Xebec's Demise

Xebec's Demise · August 1, 2005

I found two homemade 1 MB memory upgrades that may work for the 600XL in making it compatible with a 130XE.

The first one looks the most up-to-date and compatible, but the translation may make it difficult. Can anyone tell if you need to do any other modifications other than what is listed on the linked pages below. There seem to be sub-links on the 1024 k upgrade page to other modifications that I am not sure are necessary or not. The second upgrade is much older and seems to be an unfinished beta.

Anybody familiar with these or have some advice on these upgrades?

Schematic:

Bernhard Pahl's: http://www.b-pahl.de/Atari8bit/RAM-Disk/800XL_3/800xl_3.html

English Translation:

http://216.239.39.104/translate_c?hl=en&u=...VXA:en%26sa%3DN

The second one:

Mathy van Nisselroy's: http://www.holyoak.com/atari/8bitcomp.html

http://www.myatari.net/issues/may2001/memory.htm

Edited August 1, 2005 by Xebec's Demise

Almost Rice · December 16, 2005

Hi, I was looking into upgrading my 600xl to 64k or more. I have found that the 600xl uses 2x 4416 chips and the xegs uses 2x 4464 chips. They look like the pins are compatible and I could use the chips from a XEGS to upgrade a 600xl. What else would I need to take upgrade the 600xl? Will it be able to recognize the extra space? How about XEGS upgrades? Has anyone tried to use one in a 600xl or would the 600xl's lack of Freddie be a problem?

The reason I want to do this is because the xegs is currently dead and I could use its chips for other systems.

Thanks

AR

link to ram types

Edited December 16, 2005 by Almost Rice

Almost Rice · December 17, 2005

Well, I have successfully put the ram chips from the XEGS into the 600xl. It works, but with only 16k.

Craig Lisowski's mod of the 600xl

So I found this mod from Craig. I saw it before but never attempted it because I did not have the ram chips. Works great. The MyIDE interface loads up.

AR

Edited December 17, 2005 by Almost Rice

Zybex · December 21, 2005

Check the MMU of the 600XL versus the 800XL, maybe it's a different chip or some connections are missed in the 600.

Check the schematics

http://jsobola.republika.pl/schematy.htm

Good luck upgrading your machine

Almost Rice · December 21, 2005

Good luck upgrading your machine

986831[/snapback]

Already done. I got the upgrade from Craig Lisowski in the link above. All it took was bending 1 pin on 3 different chips and 3 new links from those pin to the PBI. Worked immediately. Really cool since the 600xl is the smallest 8bit.

Zybex · December 23, 2005

you upgrade it to 64 kb?

I have a 65XE with 4464 memories, and i upgrade it recently up to 256kb, but using the EMMU of a dead 130XE and a LS138.

Almost Rice · December 23, 2005

you upgrade it to 64 kb?

988124[/snapback]

Yes. I had a dead XEGS. I used its 4464 memory chips. If I just replace the chips on the 600xl with those chip, I only get 16k. If I then do the 3 solder mod. from Craig Lisowski, I get 64k. It works like any of my 800xl. I have enclosed a scan of the mod. They are the 3 red wires.

It just does not have the monitor jack. I have not had any memory problems since doing the upgrade. I may go ahead and look into doing the Super Video upgrade for my 800xl's and 600xl. I notice how much better my 800 and 130xe outputs video.

Edited December 24, 2005 by Almost Rice

Rybags · December 24, 2005

I've found a number of memory upgrades for the Atari, problem is that they are either incomplete or not in English.

Ideally, I'd love schematics and instructions for just putting a 1 meg SIMM into an 800XL or 130XE.

I did the Super Video mod on the 800XL. Didn't turn out so great.

But on my 130XE, I added S-Vid and 3.5mm audio outputs. The quality jump just from that is enormous over RF video.

+Guitarman · December 27, 2005

Outside of the upgraded 600XL posted at the top of this post, I also have a 600XL with the 2-chip mod that "Almost Rice" did. The upgrade came from AtariMax and the price was very reasonable.

I think the 3 wire locations in AtariMax's version were modified a bit but it works great.

I have 3 1200XL's, one stock and boxed, one with a 800XL/BASIC mod in it and one that is going to become the "Frankentari" machine that I am going to go apes**t on. Should be fun!!!

Edited December 27, 2005 by Guitarman

Almost Rice · December 28, 2005

I have 3 1200XL's, one stock and boxed, one with a 800XL/BASIC mod in it and one that is going to become the "Frankentari" machine that I am going to go apes**t on. Should be fun!!!

989924[/snapback]

So you are one of them hoarding all the 1200xl's I have 1 600xl, 48k 400, 800, 4 800xl (1 removed pokey and bad PIA)(1 256k), 3 130xe, and a dead XEGS.

I went for cheap on the 600xl once I found the link to the mod above and used the XEGS rams. I just love its small footprint on the desk with a toploading cart. What are you planning for the Frankentari?

Edited December 28, 2005 by Almost Rice

Xebec's Demise · March 8, 2006

I agree, the 600XL is nice because of it's small size.

That is why I was asking if there was an XE compatible upgrade for the 600XL, if there is, the 600XL would be the only Atari I would need.

Any suggestions?

+kheller2 · March 13, 2006

I've found a number of memory upgrades for the Atari, problem is that they are either incomplete or not in English.

Ideally, I'd love schematics and instructions for just putting a 1 meg SIMM into an 800XL or 130XE.

I did the Super Video mod on the 800XL. Didn't turn out so great.

But on my 130XE, I added S-Vid and 3.5mm audio outputs. The quality jump just from that is enormous over RF video.

It depends on the 800XL board you have. I did the SV2.1 upgrade on an 800XL and it was an incredible improvement.

Also, there is a 1meg SIMM upgrade out there...

Almost Rice · May 2, 2007

I thought I would give everyone an update on the upgrade.

I just got a 600xl already upgraded to 64k like the picture above. It was boxed and had all the serial numbers matching the case. The box has a sticker stating that its already upgraded to 64k. Looks like its a factory upgrade.

I got if from ebay(220099235790).

Edited May 2, 2007 by Almost Rice

puppetmark · May 2, 2007

I agree, the 600XL is nice because of it's small size.

That is why I was asking if there was an XE compatible upgrade for the 600XL, if there is, the 600XL would be the only Atari I would need.

Any suggestions?

If you know what you are doing you can actually use the 800XL 256k upgrade by Claus Buchholz and patch it into a 600XL. You have to make 2 stacks of 4 256K ram chips. build the extra circuit and through cutting taces and bending up pins, you essentially map the 256K into the 600, making it a 800XL. Its a lot of work but it can be done.

Rybags · May 2, 2007

I don't think the 1 meg SIMM upgrades are so straightforward for the 600XL.

Or a lot of the other ones for that matter.

MMU aside, they all seem to count on 64K already being present, and just map the extra RAM into the PORTB banked area at $4000-$7FFF.

walter_J64bit · May 2, 2007

I do like to 600XL with it being compact but it have one drawback there is on V/A out :sad: I would love to see a 256K 600XL :lust:

Rybags · May 2, 2007

V/A? As in a monitor port?

Fairly sure all the PAL 600XLs had a monitor port.

It would probably be easy enough to tap the Chroma and Luma signals off the motherboard in any case.

puppetmark · May 2, 2007

V/A? As in a monitor port?

Fairly sure all the PAL 600XLs had a monitor port.

It would probably be easy enough to tap the Chroma and Luma signals off the motherboard in any case.

On the US 600Xl you can't just pick off the chroma and luma lines, you need to amplify them an set the output impedence to 75 ohms. There is a super video mod for the 600XL that explains how to install the "missing components' on the US model to give it a monitor port like the PAL versions have.

re-atari · May 2, 2007

I agree, the 600XL is nice because of it's small size.

That is why I was asking if there was an XE compatible upgrade for the 600XL, if there is, the 600XL would be the only Atari I would need.

Any suggestions?

If you know what you are doing you can actually use the 800XL 256k upgrade by Claus Buchholz and patch it into a 600XL. You have to make 2 stacks of 4 256K ram chips. build the extra circuit and through cutting taces and bending up pins, you essentially map the 256K into the 600, making it a 800XL. Its a lot of work but it can be done.

Why on earth would you want to build in 2 stacks of 4 DRAM's when you can also use 2 44256's (256k*4)? IIRC (no docs at hand at the moment) these are fully pin compatible with the already built in 4416's (16k*4) and the 4464's (64k*4). The only difference is the extra addresslines, which are on pins that are not used on the 4416/4464.

Like the 800XL 256K upgrades and the 600XL 64K upgrade, you will need some extra circuitry to address the extra memoryspace.

re-atari

Almost Rice · May 3, 2007

The only difference is the extra addresslines, which are on pins that are not used on the 4416/4464.

Not a direct replacement. 44256 is a DIP20 while 4416/4464 are DIP 18 So there are 2 extra pins not in the socket.

4416/4464 pinout

44256 pinout

name:		 TMS4416
function:	 16384k*4 DRAM
package:	  DIP,18
manufacturer: TI
added-by:	 
comment:	  SMOS N-Channel Process

 +--()--+
 /G | 1  18| VSS
DQ1  | 2  17| DQ4
DQ2  | 3  16| /CAS
 /W | 4  15| DQ3
/RAS | 5  14| A0
 A6 | 6  13| A1
 A5 | 7  12| A2
 A4 | 8  11| A3
VDD  | 9  10| A7
 +------+



44256, 44258
256kx4 DRAM.

 +----------+
 D0 |1  +--+ 20| GND
 D1 |2	   19| D3
/WE  |3	   18| D2
/RAS |4	   17| /CAS
 |5 44256 16| /OE
 A0 |6 44258 15| A8
 A1 |7	   14| A7
 A2 |8	   13| A6
 A3 |9	   12| A5
VCC  |10	  11| A4
 +----------+

Xebec's Demise · May 10, 2007

I do like to 600XL with it being compact but it have one drawback there is on V/A out I would love to see a 256K 600XL

I went ahead and shipped my 600XL off to Ken Jones (MEtalGuy66) for an upgrade. He said he has designed a 512k memory upgrade for it. I'll post when it's finished.

tjlazer · May 12, 2007

I do like to 600XL with it being compact but it have one drawback there is on V/A out I would love to see a 256K 600XL

I went ahead and shipped my 600XL off to Ken Jones (MEtalGuy66) for an upgrade. He said he has designed a 512k memory upgrade for it. I'll post when it's finished.

Hey MEtalGuy66 how much for a mem upgrade (256 or 512k) and a monitor port mod? I might be interested in you doing one for me!

Edited May 12, 2007 by tjlazer

Atari 600XL Mem Upgrade

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